Legacies of the past bedevil Obama over air strikes

Date: September 7 2013

Nick O'Malley

Washington: There was a testy exchange between reporters and a State Department spokeswoman on Thursday last week that revealed much about the difficulties US President Barack Obama is having forging an alliance - domestic or foreign - for a strike on Syria.

In the regular briefing at the department's DC headquarters, spokeswoman Marie Harf batted away question after question likening Mr Obama's call to arms against Bashar al-Assad's regime to his predecessor's invasion of Iraq. She would brook no comparison between the two situations, while reporters present could not accept that the Bush administration's use of false intelligence to build a case for war is not making the Obama administration's job harder a decade later. The exchange devolved into a squabble over the definition of ''fulsome'', with a reporter interrupting Ms Harf to point out ''it means almost probably the opposite of what you intend it to mean''.

A few hours later the British Parliament voted against a strike on Syria, with many of the dissenters pointing to US intelligence failures leading to the Iraq war. The loss of a key ally may have been the impetus for Mr Obama to seek congressional approval for a strike, a nicety overlooked by recent presidents engaging in military actions.

During congressional hearings this week, mistrust of the administration has also been a common theme.

In this setting Republican critics do not cite Iraq but the administration's reaction to the assault on a diplomatic outpost in the Libyan city of Benghazi last year, as well as the festering scandals concerning the Internal Revenue Service, alleged Justice Department misconduct over journalists' email and phone records, Justice Department involvement in gun trafficking under Operation Fast and Furious and even leaks about the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency.

In a bitter exchange during Secretary of State John Kerry's testimony at a hearing on Wednesday, Republican Jeff Duncan wove all these threads together.

''The administration has a serious credibility issue with the American people, due to the unanswered questions surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi almost a year ago. When you factor in the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the AP and James Rosen issues, Fast and Furious and NSA spying programs, the bottom line is that there is a need for accountability and trust-building from the administration,'' he said.

Mr Kerry's response was an angry one. ''I'm not going to sit here and be told by you that I don't have a set of - a sense of what the judgment is,'' he said. ''We are talking about people being killed by gas and you want to go talk about Benghazi and Fast and Furious.''

The issue is creating strange bedfellows. Some on the Democratic left agree with the Tea Party right, which believes America has no responsibility to act as a global cop enforcing a ''norm'' against the use of chemical weapons.

Even Russia has cause for mistrust. Though it may be that Russia would have blocked United Nations-sanctioned action against its Middle East ally under any circumstances, it is clear that it feels betrayed after voting for a limited ''humanitarian'' action against Libya in 2011 that became a prolonged international campaign ending in regime change.

And then there is the simple fact of American war-weariness. Many in Congress report they are being deluged with calls from constituents urging them to oppose any further US military intervention in the Middle East.

Polls also show little support for an attack - just 29 per cent, according to the most recent Pew Research survey.

Mr Obama may still get his way - figures on both sides of Congress have expressed support. But given the infernal politics at home, even the frosty welcome extended by Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday might have seemed a relief.